


The Black Parade

by unethicalcoffee



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Character Study, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 12:10:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3119699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unethicalcoffee/pseuds/unethicalcoffee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asami reflects on those that love her most and whether or not she can love herself on their account.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Black Parade

Asami has always been told that she is small. Granted, this isn't far from the truth when addressing an eight-year-old girl, but Asami has never _felt_ small. Her body has only ever felt _right_ , not large enough to pose more than a decent match to many in terms of brawn, but nimble and controllable, a well-kept tool, more often preserved than utilised in battle. Her mind, on the other hand, has always felt larger than life; too large, perhaps, for her pretty little head, and certainly not as controlled as her body, though it is (ironically) what many seem to admire most in her. At eight years, Asami mimics the reverence of others, though she knows not what it is they revere; she chooses to harness her mind, tame it if she can, dedicate her life to this pursuit. Yet in the recesses of the very mind that people praise, fear throbs perpetually, an ache in the back of her skull she neither knows nor understands, might never know or understand, though it will always be familiar.

It pushes to bursting. It pushes at her skull, ideas and images and reason and desire all longing to be freed. It isn't long before it seizes her hands, sketches cities, steals wood and saws and rulers and files from factory provisions, crafts roads and cars and skyscrapers that they all call _small_  when they don't know that this is the future. Asami doesn't know what her mind was given her for, and it doesn't help that they look at her like a joke and tell her it's beautiful all at once. It eats her.

It is likely that her father realises this, because it is he that takes her from the brink. He puts her on his shoulders and takes her into the city, and red floats and lanterns line the streets, where people in masks dance and throw fire and Asami points and asks questions and her father tells her of the Fire Days Festival. She thinks it's beautiful but he is somehow melancholy as he speaks, his face twisted and frightening, no longer the man she knows. But this isn't why we're here, he says. Not all of us, he says, can throw fire, or move earth, or lift water, or guide air, and those of us that cannot have nothing. Before he continues, Asami knows that he is wrong; we have our minds, he says, and we are the first of our kind in history to realise that the mind is a weapon. Asami is acutely aware of the throbbing in her head, but her father turns to face her, and his smile is his own again. We will use it for good, he says. We will help the helpless.

If Asami cannot help the helpless it is not for lack of trying. The compassion instilled in her by her father somewhat adds to the integrity of her bursting skull but the pain only intensifies, throbs and throbs under attack from ever stronger, ever more numerous fists. After the Fire Days Festival that she sees when she is eight years old, Asami never _ceases_ to feel small. How is a helpless girl to help the helpless?

“Asami, are you alright?”

Sensation returns to Asami's fingers; her hand begins to move again midst soft brown locks, her eyes flit down to meet Korra's on her lap. She remembers thinking of these things three years ago with Korra's body in her arms, then cold and emaciated for lack of food and restful sleep. Her own body had been on the verge of collapse, too, as though she had caught part of Korra's suffering, their love a disease. Helpless she had felt then, when Korra could sleep only in her arms, helpless she feels now, to be gazed upon with love as vast as oceans in her eyes. But Asami is too clever for her own good; she knows neither her father's memory nor Korra's love will ever conquer her demons, that only she can.

She allows herself to suppose, however, that she must have done something right along the way. To be sitting in the spirit world with her love in her arms, after all... Perhaps she is not so small as she thinks.


End file.
